My Baby Turns 16 Today

My son turned 16 today. Wow where has the time gone? He is the little blonde guy in the photo above and now he is a tall and dark headed soon to be Junior in high school! The above photo was taken at Port Aransas on his 6th birthday with cousins. Below, here he is this past weekend with a few of the same cousins. They have grown up too.

His grandparents bought him a car for his birthday. Lucky him for sure! I just had to put a bow on top of it even though he has had the car several weeks and he picked it out. 2003 Grand Prix GTP Coupe and it's Indigo Blue. He loves it!

I almost forgot to make him a card for the special occasion. I remembered at 11:30pm last night. Well I had an excuse...I was seeing Harry Potter last night! One of my longtime friends works for Cinemark and she invited me as her guest to a special screening before it hit the theaters today. A rude awakening for me was that usually Blair goes with me to see them. He always has gone to the screenings with me and this time he didn't want to go. He had plans to see it today with a friend and of course he would have his license and I didn't have to go with him. Heartbreak for me but I will get over it. He is growing up!!

Here is the card that I made at midnight last night.

I got him a cookie because he doesn't like cake. I also took him to lunch at the restaurant at Bass Pro Shop (Islamorada Fish Co.) so he could eat crab. His new love all of a sudden.

The day started off with going to get his license and that went smoothly. Of course me being traditional I wanted to take him to the DPS where me, his Dad and everyone else we know got our license. Well he wanted to go to the one in Rockwall and not have to wait forever! I WON and we went early to the one I wanted. Better keep Mother happy! We didn't have to wait long (like 40 minutes).

As we were leaving the parking lot he rolled up the window of his car on my side (we cracked it because it was getting hot) and it popped so loud I thought the glass broke. Well guess what? The regulator went out in the window and the glass would not stay up in the door! Called my husband and he said you will have to bring it down to my work to get it fixed. Just what we wanted to do on Blair's birthday! LOL Picked up the part at an auto supply then ran over to Dad's work and only had to stay there an hour or so. It wasn't as bad time wise as we thought. It just put us about an hour or two behind schedule. But in the end everything worked out OK.

Now Blair has to get a job. He is looking forward to having his own money and of course already has a list of things he wants to buy. I look forward to not having to put gas in his car or pay for when he wants to do something! LOL

Blair's First Plane Ride

Last Saturday I took Blair on his first airplane ride. He had never been in a plane before and has always wanted to fly. So for his birthday I booked a SURPRISE private plane ride for him out of Addison Airport. Boy was he ever surprised! And nervous! But in the end he was so amazed and loved it! I even loved it. I had not been in a plane this small (4 seater) before. It was like being one with the plane. It was a smooth ride though for the most part.
Blair is flying the plane here. The pilot let him turn the plane by himself and fly a few mintues. Really COOL! He was a nice person and Blair and him hit it off great.

Downtown Dallas

Reunion Tower

Our house is in that little cove on the left. My photos of "over" our house came out kinda blurry and it's hidden by tons of trees. We could really just see the top of the house and two of our vehicles in the driveway. It's funny because our cove really looked smaller from overhead than it is when your in it. LOL I almost missed it when first looking for it. The houseboat parked in the cove helped me find it though.

Canton Finds

Went to Canton yesterday with one of my friends. She found a great old post office mail sorter. She will be able to stash all kinds of items in the slots. I found this green carpenters ruler. I had never seen a green one. Had to have it!

The last time I was at Canton I saw wind chimes made from silver tea pots, tea cups and silverware. I wanted to make one but didn't find a tea pot. This time I saw this silver gravy boat and thought it would make a great wind chime. It did make a great one! I put it together last night with fishing string and beads. All I had to do was drill holes into the silver pieces. Not a problem with my dremel. I hung it this morning in my backyard. My son said it look like ghetto redneck trash. So much for his opinion on! I lOVE it!!!

Collage on Wood

I learned a new paint technique at my rubber stamp club meeting this month. We used Gesso to prepare the wood for the paint and attached torn dictionary pages, letters or whatever paper item you wanted to the wood. Placed masking tape strips randomly over the papers burnished them down then ripped them off. It removes some of the writing and such of the papers. Really cool technique. I had previously learned this in one of Claudine Hellmuth's books. But when combined with the paint technique it is wonderful. We applied the paint then spritz water on it and dabbed with a paper towel. It lifts the paint and you can see below what was there. Either papers or another paint color. It was fun. I did the small bird piece at the meeting then came home and did the larger piece. It was a cabinet door that I purchased at Canton several months back.

Speaking of Canton...it's this coming weekend. I plan on going with some friends. I know it will be very HOT! Especially since we have had temps in the 100's lately. Last week was the worst yet. The store I work at had Tim Holtz in to teach for the weekend. We told him it was hot and humid and we proved it for sure. His classes went well and all the students seemed to have a good time. He is a fabulous teacher! Check out his blog http://timholtz.com/ to see some photos from one of the classes.